the Fourth Week of Advent
Click here to join the effort!
Bible Dictionaries
Sisters
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or SISTERS.—1. Nothing is known positively of these female relatives of Jesus. There is but one incidental reference to their existence (Mark 6:3 = Matthew 13:56 αἱ ἀδελφαί αὐτοῦ) by His fellow-townsmen of Nazareth, who were astonished and offended by His assumed claims to be their religious Teacher. The knowledge which they possessed of His family affairs was too intimate to allow them to examine without prejudice the words and deeds of Jesus. The question as to the precise family relationship which His ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’ bore to Jesus is one which has occupied the attention of scholars and writers in every age of the Christian Church (see art. Brethren of the Lord). It is, perhaps, significant of the estimation in which women were held, that although the names of Jesus’ ‘brothers’ are given in detail, we are nowhere in the canonical Gospels told either the names or the number of His ‘sisters.’ That there were more than two seems to follow from the Matthaean addition (πᾶσαι) to the Markan question, ‘Are not his sisters here with us?’ It is true that tradition ascribed two daughters to Joseph, though one uncanonical Gospel at least describes Joseph as acknowledging sons, but denying the presence of daughters in his household.
This interpretation of the words ἀλλʼ οἴδασιν τάντες οἱ υἱοὶ Ἰσρκὴλ ὅτι οὐκ ἔστι μου θυγατηρ (Protev. Jacobi, c. xvii., in Tischendorf’s Evang. Apocr [Note: pocr Apocrypha, Apocryphal.] .) seems to the present writer to be warranted by the context, though doubtless the words have a primary reference to the Virgin Mary (see Lightfoot’s ‘The Brethren of the Lord’ in Dissert. on the Apostolic Age, p. 28). The daughters of Joseph are almost universally said to be two in number (‘Genuit quoque sibi … duas filias,’ Hist. Josephus Fabri Lignarii, cap. ii.; ‘Ambae pariter nupserunt filiae,’ ib. cap. xi., cf. also pseudo-Matt. [Note: Matthew’s (i.e. prob. Rogers’) Bible 1537.] cap. 42), while there seems to be no agreement in these documents, nor, indeed, among Church writers generally, as to their names (‘nomina duarum filiarum [erant] Assia et Lydia,’ Hist. Jos. Fabri Lignarii, cap. ii.’; cf. the Bohairic Version of the same writing, which changes their names to Lysia and Lydia). Other writers give their names very variously as Mary and Salome, Anna and Salome, Esther and Thamar; while Theophylact curiously enough names three as the daughters of Joseph—Esther, Thamar, and Salome (see Donehoo’s Apocryphal and Legendary Life of Christ, p. 27 n. [Note: note.] 4 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred] ).
These Apocryphal additions can, however, have but little claim on our sympathy, and one Church Father at least betrays his sense of the inadequacy of the sources of his information by appealing fro Scripture as his authority for the names Mary and Salome (Epiphanius, Haeres. p. 1041, ed. Petav. referred to and quoted by Lightfoot [op. cit. p. 40]), which he chooses as the names of Jesus’ ‘sisters.’
If Jesus had sisters, as the writers of the first two Gospels evidently believed, it is easy to understand what was the source of His general attittude towards women which drew them to Him in humble and loving service (cf. Luke 7:37 f., Luke 8:1-3, Mark 14:3-9 = Matthew 26:6-13, John 12:1-8; John 4:7 ff; John 8:10), outlasting in its loyalty the devotion of the majority of His disciples, and stretching beyond the cross and the grave (Mark 15:40 f., Mark 16:1, Matthew 27:55 f., Matthew 28:1, Luke 23:49; Luke 23:55; Luke 24:1-10, John 19:25; John 20:1 f., John 20:11; John 20:18). Traces, moreover, of His keen appreciation of the beauty and happiness attaching to the home life of the human family may be seen in His reference to the highest act of self-abnegation demanded from His followers; where the pointed reference to ‘sisters’ (ἀδελφάς) alongside ‘brethren’ (ἀδελφούς) marks this characteristic feature of Jesus’ teaching (see Mark 10:29 f. = Matthew 19:29, Luke 14:26).
2. On the sisters of Bethany see artt. Martha, and Mary § 3.
3. Amongst the witnesses of the Crucifixion mentioned by all four Evangelists were, according to St. John, two sisters—Mary the mother of Jesus, and His mother’s sister. Though it has been argued that Mary the (wife) of Clopas (Μαρία ἡ τοῦ Κλωπᾶ) was the sister of the Virgin, it is now generally agreed that the interpretation of Pesh. (John 19:25), which inserts the conjunction ‘and’ between the words ‘His mother’s sister’ and ‘Mary of Clopas,’ is correct (cf., on the other hand, pseudo-Matt. c. 42: ‘… Jesus et Maria mater ejus cum sorore sua Maria Cleophae,’ where the reason given why two sisters should have the same name is that the first having been devoted to the service of the Lord, the second too was called Mary for the consolation of her parents). From a comparison of the names of the women who witnessed the Crucifixion, given by the first, second, and fourth Evangelists, the most likely conjecture would seem to be that by ‘the sister of his mother’ St. John meant his own mother Salome (see, however, Schmiedel’s art. ‘Mary’ in EBi [Note: Bi Encyclopaedia Biblica.] iii. 2969, which denies her identity either with ‘Mary of Clopas’ or with Salome; cf. also Edersheim, LT [Note: T Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah [Edersheim].] ii. 602, and Westcott, Gospel of St. John, ad loc.). If the identification by Hegesippus of Clopas with the brother of Joseph be correct, we have the interesting fact that this Mary, thus referred to by St. John, was closely connected with Jesus by the ties of family relationship (see Euseb. iii. 11, iv. 22).
J. R. Willis.
These files are public domain.
Text Courtesy of BibleSupport.com. Used by Permission.
Hastings, James. Entry for 'Sisters'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/s/sisters.html. 1906-1918.
